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Thread: natural is not in it

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    Inactive Member sister_saviour's Avatar
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    <center>Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes
    and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.
    On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little
    wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands'
    necks. Anything can happen.

    -- Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind" </center>

    <font color="#000000" size="1">[ June 29, 2007 11:22 PM: Message edited by: sister saviour ]</font>

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    Inactive Member sister_saviour's Avatar
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    She sits on the curb and watches as smoke begins to emerge from all the windows. Flame is more elusive. It licks along the walls, destroying everything it touches. It is like the best thief though -- rarely seen, never heard and completely enveloped in black. Smoke is the ugly reminder. It's a great big bully that rushes in as pressure builds up and makes glass shatter. Inside the houses that line the suburban blocks, people are watching from behind their curtains. They gasp as the frame of the house begins to sag and a crack ripples down the block. Their houses begin to smell like the rotten stench of charred wood. They call one another, a pretty phone tree of inquiry and concern. Has anyone called nine-one-one? Do you have a number for a good cleaner? I simply must get this smell out of my carpet. We're hosting this week. No one sees her sitting on the curb in her sooty undershirt and panties. They don't see the choke hold of a tie around her neck or the black bottoms of her feet. It's the nasty voyeuristic side of people nowadays: to just peer out from their safe nests and watch as someone else's life goes up in flame. Or maybe no. Maybe people have always been like that.

    Chicago, 1962. Francine Colangelo was returning home from her shift as a waitress at Sal's Diner when she noticed that a man had been following her since she got off the bus at the corner of 18th and Redding. She starts walking faster, but he's still there. She ignores him, but he's still there. He catches up with her in front of her apartment complex. It's ill lit and in a bad neighborhood. He begins to brutally rape and beat her. She starts screaming bloody murder and lights turn on in the building. She yells for help, but nobody bothers to call the police. In the morning, she's dead with her head split open on the concrete and skirt still shoved up her thighs. Everybody is shocked. They heard, but thought surely someone else was calling the cops. Now when you find yourself in Francine's place, you're supposed to say: Help! Help me! I don't know this person who is violating and hurting me! Can you even imagine?

    She smokes a cigarette. It's a white stub against the black curl of her knuckles. When her lips touch the filter, they leave no trace. She is sensitive to things now in a way unlike before. Her eyes have been opened in this single moment of destruction. She can still smell the sulfur strike of the match head as it was cracked down the side of the matchbox. Her eyes are dry as she watches her dream home become unrecognizable. She can appreciate the cyclic nature of things. They had bought the parcel of land five years ago. Everything is returned to the ground. She is not bitter, but relieved to know she is one of the lucky ones. Nothing is exactly stated in words, but she knows somehow that it is not this way for everyone. Some people go mad and spend the rest of time clawing at yellow wallpaper walls. Others cease to exist altogether. She is still learning the rules.

    Spine unfurling backwards, she tosses her head back to spit into the lawn of Susan and Charlie Griffin. What comes from her mouth is vile and inhuman. It is tar and ash. When they had first moved into their freshly constructed house, the Griffin lawn had just begun to sprout grass. It was a sign of promise that they would too, be like the Griffins. Still, she had not seen anything of herself in the blonde and smiling Susan as she brought over a plate of chocolate chip cookies. They had been homemade with the chips still half-melted from the oven. Welcome to the neighborhood, she had said as the blue Pyrex dish was settled in her palms. Now, it was undeniable. They would never, ever be like the Griffins. She hears the shatter of glass inside cabinets from the building pressure. The blue Pyrex is among the casualties. She had never returned the plate, but it was too late now.

    The fire trucks came at last, yellow suited men rushing in. Black suited men rushing out. She sat on the curb of 1051 Farver Circle and watched it all with that same grim resignation that had carried her through. This must have been what was meant when people said, And I watched my life flash before my eyes.

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